THEOPHRASTUS-CALLISTHENES-MARSYAS. 57

death of Alexander, when the generals of the monarch divided their master's conquests among them, became King of Lycia and Pamphylia. He was a soldier and a man of letters; and one work of his On the Education of Alexander is perhaps as great a loss to us as any composition of antiquity which could be named.

CHAPTER IV.

ARISTOTLE RETURNS TO ATHENS.

ON Alexander commencing his eastern expedition, Aristotle, leaving his relation and pupil Callisthenes to supply his own place as a friendly adviser to the youthful monarch, whom he accompanied in the ostensible character of historiographer', returned to Athens. Whether this step was the consequence of any specific invitation or not, it is difficult to say. Some accounts state that he received a public request from the Athenians to come, and conjointly with Xenocrates to succeed Speusippus2. But these views appear to proceed upon the essentially false opinion that the position of teacher was already a publicly recognised one, and besides to imply the belief that Xenocrates and Aristotle were at the time on their travels together; whereas we know that the latter was in Macedonia till B.C. 335, and that the former had four years before this time. succeeded Speusippus, not by virtue of any public appointment, but in consequence of his private wish". If any more precise reason be required for the philosopher's change of residence than the one which probably determined him at first to visit Athens, namely the superior attractions which that city possessed for cultivated and refined minds, we should incline to believe that the greater mildness of climate was the

5

TEACHES IN THE LYCEUM.

59

influencing cause'. His health was unquestionably delicate; and perhaps it was a regard for this, combined with the wish to economize time, that induced him to deliver his instructions (or at least a part of them) not sitting or standing, but walking backwards and forwards in the open air. The extent to which he carried this practice, although the example of Protagoras in Plato's Dialogue is enough to show that he did not originate it, procured for his scholars, who of course were obliged to conform to this habit, the soubriquet of Peripatetics, or Walkers backwards and forwards. From the neighbouring temple and grove of Apollo Lyceus, his school was commonly known by the name of the Lyceum 7; and here every morning and evening he delivered lectures to a numerous body of scholars. Among these he appears to have made a division. The morning course, or, as he called it from the place where it was delivered, the morning walk, (ewewos reρíπαтOS), was attended only by the more highly disciplined part of his auditory, the subjects of it belonging to the higher branches of philosophy, and requiring a systematic attention as well as a previously cultivated understanding

4 This seems to be the true interpretation of the expression of Aristotle cited by Demetrius. De Elocut. sec. 29, 155: éyw ek μÈV ̓Αθηνῶν εἰς Στάγειρα ἦλθον διὰ τὸν βασιλέα τὸν μέγαν, ἐκ δὲ Σταγείρων εἰς ̓Αθήνας διὰ τὸν χειμῶνα τὸν μέγαν.

5 P. 314. E. 315. C.

6

Cicero, Academ. Post. i. 4. Cicero translates the word epiπατεῖν by inambulare. Hermippus explained it by ἀνακάμπτειν. Diogenes Laertius (v. 2.) attributes the origin of this practice with Aristotle to a regard not for his own health but for that of Alexander.

7 Before the Peloponnesian War it had been used as a gymnasium, and was said to have been built by Pisistratus. See Aristoph. Pac. 355, and the Scholiast.

60

DIVISION OF HIS SCHOLARS.

on the part of the scholar.

In the evening course (de

λινὸς περίπατος) the subjects as well as the manner of treating them were of a more popular cast, and more appreciable by a mixed assembly. Aulus Gellius1 who is our sole authority on this matter, affirms that the expressions acroatic discourses and exoteric discourses (λόγοι ἀκρωτικοὶ and λόγοι ἐξωτερικοί) were the appropriate technical terms for these instructions; and he further says that the former comprised Theological, Physical, and Dialectical investigations, the latter Rhetoric, Sophistic, (or the art of disputing,) and Politics. We shall in another place examine thoroughly into the precise meaning of these celebrated phrases, a task which would here too much break the thread of the narrative. We may, however, remark that the morning discourses were called acroatic or subjects of lectures, not because they belonged to this or that branch, but because they were treated in a technical and systematic manner; and so the evening discourses obtained the name of exoteric or separate, because each of them was insulated, and not forming an integral part of a system. It is obvious that some subjects

more suitable to the one of these methods, and others to the other; and the division which Gellius makes is, generally speaking, a good one. But that it does not hold universally is plain, not to mention. other arguments, from the fact that the work on Rhetoric which has come down to us is an acroatic work, and that on Politics apparently the unfinished draught of one; while on the contrary, à fragment of an exoteric work preserved by Cicero in a Latin dress is upon a theological subject.

1 Noct. Att. xx. 5.

PHILOSOPHICAL SYMPOSIA.

61

The more select circle of his scholars Aristotle used to assemble at stated times on a footing, which without any straining of analogy we may compare to the periodical dinners held by some of the literary clubs of modern times. The object of this obviously was to combine the advantages of high intellectual cultivation with the charms of social intercourse ;-to make men feel that philosophy was not a thing separate from the daily uses of life, but one which entered into all its charities and was mixed up with its real pleasures. These reunions were regulated by a code of rules, of which we know enough to see that the cynicism or pedantry, which frequently induces such as would be accounted deep thinkers to despise the elegancies or even the decencies of life, was strongly discountenanced 3. In these days, especially in England, where so many different elements combine to produce social intercourse in its highest perfection, it is difficult to estimate the important effect which must have been brought about by a custom such as that just mentioned. "To enjoy leisure gracefully and creditably," is not easy for any one at any time, but for the Athenian in the days of Aristotle was a task of the greatest difficulty. Deprived of that kind of female intercourse which in modern social life is the great instrument for humanizing the other sex, softening, as it does, through the affections, the disposition to ferocity and rudeness, and checking the licentious passions by the dignity of matronly or maidenly purity,

"Athenæus, p. 186.

3 Αριστοτέλης δὲ ἄλουτον καὶ κονιορτοῦ πλήρη ἥκειν τινα ἐπὶ τὸ πόσιον ἀπρεπὲς εἶναι φησίν. Athenæus, p. 186. Ε.

συμ

4 oxoλáčew kaλws. Polit. viii. p. 1337, col. 2, line 34. Compare also Nicom. Ethic. p. 1177, col. 2, line 4, and Polit. vii. p. 1334, col. 1, line 18-34.